Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor

Sleepaway Camp IV (2012)

BOMB (out of 4)

After the success of SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2 and 3, plans for a fourth film were made and eventually filming began. Shortly after that the company behind the picture went bankrupt so the film production stopped. Years later Anchor Bay released a boxset of the three films and as an added bonus they included production footage and outtakes from the fourth film. Then, in 2008, the long awaited RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP was released but then word got out about a "new" film.

That "new" film turned out to be SLEEPAWAY CAMP IV: THE SURVIVOR, which in the end is nothing but a cheap way to milk money out of fans. This film runs 70 minutes and about ten minutes worth of that is footage from the unreleased part four. The other sixty minutes are scenes from the first three movies. To be more clear, all the death scenes and "highlights" from the first three movies are played here.

There are so many problems with this film but the biggest is the fact that there simply wasn't enough footage to make a fourth film. You get movies like SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 2 where a little footage is shown and then footage from the original is thrown in to make it a feature. That doesn't happen here because there just wasn't enough original footage. Even worse is the fact that the footage from the first three films is of horrible quality and the editing is just awful. The "story" they try to tell with all the footage is just embarrassing.

There's really no point in watching this film when the first three movies are available in wonderful special editions and the fourth film's outtakes can be viewed in many places.

LOL ... Has anyone ever seen the trailer for this film? I have never laughed so hard in my life...I think both my lungs popped. It looks like a film crew went out in the woods with three actors and shot a bunch of footage and then edited it together. Its almost like one of those trailers that was put together to present at a studio as a "visual aid" for a possible idea for a movie. And the guys echoed voice was priceless.

Sleepaway Camp IV never existed. It was supposed to, but didnt. What anyone who got the Sleepaway Camp box set got was a bonus DVD of scenes that were shot for the movie, but it was never finshed, and what was left over was a bunch of random scenes which barely tied in together.

This "movie" is a complete dump. Bunch of stock footage from the first movie strung together with awful footage filmed for this sequel. Doesn't make any sense because the actual movie was never finished. Don't waste your time on this.

Here in the UK this 4th disc isn't available as it was in the US as part of a Best Buy exclusive offer with the boxset. Being a bit of a completist a friend of mine in the US kindly sent over his copy, insisting the whole time that it was really quite poor, and still I was excited about getting a glimpse of this incomplete sequel.

I think the first thing that has to be said is though the running length is 30 minutes, you are perhaps only getting 4 or 5 different scenes (totalling maybe 7 minutes if that), but with numerous takes. Some are mundane shots like a person running through the same patch of woods, or screaming, over and over again. So don't be deceived into believing what you will have is 30 minutes of storyline or character development which ends abruptly. Nope- there's so little here that even the trailer struggles to be coherent...and fails.

It is harsh to judge based on just a few minutes of footage but it doesn't FEEL like a Sleepaway Camp movie. It lacks the atmosphere of the first film, the humour of parts 2 and 3, and with only 3 characters on film there's no hint of a camp, so even the setting feels wrong, and far more isolated. It sadly reminded me of those cheap TV soft core films (you know the kind- Red Shoe Diaries type of thing) but set in the woods. I don't know if the film intended to go down the skin flick route but that's the impression you get.

So my advice- if you get this as a freebie, fine, view away and sigh in relief that this film was never completed. If you are a completist (and I know it's hard to be talked out of buying things!) please don't spend too much money tracking this one down.